What Closing The U.S. Department Of Education Means For Your Child’s School: What Parents Need To Know
The toaster popped my sourdough right as the headline popped up on my phone Tuesday morning: Democrats Move to Impeach Linda McMahon Over ‘Willful Intent’ to Close the U.S. Department of Education. My 10-year-old son’s soccer cleats were still by the door, his lunchbox missing an apple, and my phone buzzed again before I could even read past the first line. It was my little sister Lila, who teaches 3rd grade at the public elementary school 10 minutes from my house. “All the parents at drop-off are asking me what this actually means for us,” her text said. “Can you explain it without all the congressional jargon?”
We met for coffee after school that day, at the little dive shop downtown with the wobbly tables. Lila brought her grubby grade book, still crumpled with student drawings from the week, and ordered an oat milk latte. I got black coffee, and we propped the table leg up with a folded napkin to stop it from spilling. Lila had already dealt with a broken heater in her classroom that morning, which cut her reading block short, so she was ready to talk through it. Most parents she’d talked to only had two questions: What would closing the Department of Education actually do to our local schools? And why is impeachment even part of this conversation?
The short version of the politics is that McMahon has said for years she believes the Department of Education should be eliminated entirely, and Democrats say she’s been quietly working toward that goal since taking office, even though Congress never voted to shut it down. That’s the “willful intent” they’re referencing. But that’s the DC version. The version that matters to us starts with Mia, an 8-year-old in Lila’s class.
Mia has dyslexia, and last year our local school board tried to cut the district’s only full-time dyslexia specialist to cover a budget gap. Mia’s mom filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, because federal law requires districts to provide specialized support for kids with learning differences. The Department stepped in, and the cut got reversed. This year, Mia’s reading level has jumped two grade levels. I saw her last week at the after-school program, sitting on the front steps reading a Junie B. Jones book out loud to her little cousin. If the Department of Education didn’t exist, there’s no one who would have enforced that rule. Our small, cash-strapped district would have kept the cut, and Mia would still be staying after school every day trying to catch up without help.
That’s the thing most DC politicians don’t say out loud: the Department of Education isn’t just a distant bureaucracy full of people you never meet. It’s the reason low-income kids get free breakfast and lunch at school. It’s the reason 18% of our local district’s annual budget comes from federal funding, most of it directed to schools with high numbers of low-income students. It’s the entity that manages the income-driven student loan plans that I use, and that 45 million other Americans use to pay off their college debt. It sets basic rules for how schools treat kids with disabilities, how they protect students from discrimination, and how they keep federal money flowing to the communities that need it most.
None of this is to say the Department is perfect. There’s plenty of waste, plenty of unnecessary red tape that makes teachers’ jobs harder. I’ve sat in enough PTA meetings to hear principals complain about confusing federal reporting requirements that take time away from the classroom. But cutting the whole thing isn’t a fix for bad bureaucracy. It’s just cutting the support that millions of kids and parents rely on.
After we finished our coffee, Lila asked me what parents can actually do right now, when all this feels like a distant political fight that doesn’t have anything to do with their everyday routine. The steps don’t have to be big, I told her. You don’t have to go to a protest or donate hundreds of dollars to a campaign. There are three small things anyone can do this month, that take less than 10 minutes total.
First, pull up your local school district’s budget page (it’s almost always on the district website, under the “finance” tab) and spend five minutes looking up how much of your district’s budget comes from the U.S. Department of Education. Ours is 18%, most of that for special education and school nutrition. Just knowing that number changes how you think about the fight. Second, google your U.S. Representative’s office phone number, save it in your phone, and call once to leave a short message: “I’m a parent of a kid at [your local school], and I want you to oppose any effort to close or dismantle the Department of Education.” You don’t need to give a long speech. Most offices just count the number of calls they get on an issue, so even 30 seconds is enough. Third, if you’re part of your school’s PTA or parent teacher group, ask to add 10 minutes to the next meeting’s agenda to let your principal explain what would get cut if federal education funding disappeared. Most principals will tell you straight, no politics required.
I did the first two steps last night, after my son finished his homework and before soccer practice. I found the budget number in three minutes, left my message in 45 seconds. That’s all I had time for. Right now, no one knows how the impeachment process will go, or what will happen next. Some people say closing the Department would give more control to states, but our state already struggles to fund public schools, and we’re one of the luckier ones. What I do know is that the next time you see a headline about this fight, it’s not just about DC politics. It’s about Mia being able to read a chapter book out loud to her cousin. It’s about the 60% of kids at Lila’s school who rely on free lunch to get enough to eat every day. It’s about parents like me who still pay off student loans on a plan that works for our budget. It’s messy, it’s political, and it’s far from resolved. But it matters, right here, in our local elementary school.
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